If This Is Your First Time Hearing This: Nat Love Edition

Words By: Nico Rud

Kweku Collins has been on an uphill journey ever since signing with the guys over here at Closed Sessions. One year ago tomorrow marks the release of his debut album, Nat Love. The release of Nat Love really helped boost Kweku's career, landing him on a few world tours, placements at SXSW, and landed him a position playing in front of his hometown crowd on Thursday at Lollapalooza. With tomorrow being the one year anniversary, it only seemed right to talk to Alex Fruchter (DJ RTC) about this past year. Check it out!

When did you first hear Kweku Collins?

Kweku sent me an email introducing himself and his music on 1/21/15. I replied to him on 1/26/15, so I’m guessing that was the day I ended up checking the email and listening to the music. Specifically, I was listening to World’s Away.

After listening to him for the first time, did you think he would turn into what he has become?

That’s a loaded question, haha. On the one hand, I definitely heard something special in the music immediately. After exchanging emails and meeting him, I saw something special in Kweku as a person. We never work with an artist that we expect to fail, so inherently I thought he would continue to grow as an artist/person, make great music, and achieve success – much of what we are seeing right now. That said though, I don’t have any expectations or ideas on who Kweku will “become”. That is for Kweku to decide, and for us to support. I will say that I’m really proud of how much he has grown since I met him. He is really coming into his own. I see his confidence increase every day. And his ability to empathize with others is something I model my own behavior after.

After seeing his question, I went back and looked at those first exchanges that we had. In one email I asked him about his goals in his music. This is what he said -

“I want to be a voice for people. I want to make music people can find comfort and positivity in...Right now, I'm just trying to keep it growing.”

I think he’s doing that pretty well so far.

Nat Love is approaching it's 1 year anniversary. For those who haven't listened, what are your favorite songs from the project?

My favorite tracks are “The Outsiders”, “Nat’s Intro”, “Ghost”, “The Last”, I could really list 5 more haha.

What's on the radar for Kweku this year?

grey, his new project, is coming really soon. After that, Kweku’s hitting the road with Vallis Alps, playing Lollapalooza, and some other things I can’t quite speak on just yet.